Short Drops and Sudden Stops
by virgo79
Summary: Ficlets, drabbles, and other oneshots.
1. By Blood Undone

A series of ficlets, one-shots, and runaway drabbles from Black Pearl Sails. Jack, Will, Elizabeth, etc. belong to Disney, and are, as always, borrowed. (I promise to play nice. Mostly.)

By virgo79.

This one was originally posted for the "hair" challenge at Black Pearl Sails. To sum it up, there's a first time for everything.

**BY BLOOD UNDONE**

………………………………….

Long hair hid his face as he braced blood-sticky hands against the wall and retched. He'd brought up his rum, his supper, and possibly his liver, but couldn't seem to rid himself of the twisted, heavy knot filling his stomach.

The recalled sensation of his cutlass scraping along something less yielding than flesh as he'd pulled it from his opponent's body yanked the knot tighter, and he bent double again, fingers white-knuckled as they dug into the wall.

"Jack?"

He fought to still the rolling of his insides, panting shallowly through chapped lips, and realized that he didn't know if he expected Bill to me more ashamed of him for bloodying his hands or losing his belly.

His hair was swept back from his face, gathered up at his nape in one steady hand. The other, cool and calloused, wiped sweat from forehead and neck.

"Breathe through your nose, Jack."

He heeded Bill, and like always it was good advice. The knot loosened, just a little. And Jack was bemused to find how much lighter his shoulders felt, with his hair lifted off of them.


	2. Overexertion

Still don't own anyone.

The challenge this one was in response to was "movement".

**OVEREXERTION**

The little green-painted rowboat drifted in the shallows of the lagoon, lazily tugging at its tether. A breeze kissed the surface of the water, sending the reflected pink and gold evening sunlight fluttering, broken into a thousand pieces.

Elizabeth reclined, right leg hooked over the side of the boat, foot trailing languidly in the cool water. One arm was tucked beneath her head, fingers flexing absently, tracing invisible patterns in the air. The other hand weaved through Will's sable hair where it spilled across her belly. His chest rose and fell in the soft movement of not-quite-sleep, and one thumb rubbed sleepily at the underside of her bare knee.

She felt something brush her dangling foot, and cracked open one eye, craning her neck just enough to see her dress float by. She snagged it on her toes and lifted it up to drape with a wet slap on the edge of the boat.

Then her foot submerged again, her head tipped back, and all was still save their breath, and the breeze.


	3. Catch of the Day

This one I posted at Black Pearl Sails in response to the "aches" challenge there, but it's a story that had been brewing for a while before that. It ties in loosely to "The Weight of Water", and the circumstances of Jack and Bill's first meeting.

A fish tale, of sorts, about the one that got away.

**CATCH OF THE DAY**

Jack's head throbbed where he'd struck it on something when the red-bearded sailor had shoved him back into the narrow galley, after he'd been discovered as a stowaway.

After the cry had gone up above decks, and the man hadn't seemed very interested in Jack anymore. _"Mermaid!"_ someone had shouted, and Jack never known a single word could hold so much terror. _"Mermaid in the net!"_

The cut he'd suffered behind his ear had bled down his neck, itchy and sticky beneath his collar. His legs and back ached from the time he'd spent curled without relief in the same position. A twinge in his right calf had become a full-blown, knifelike cramp some time ago. He made no move to reach for it, to try to massage it out. He had forgotten, for a while, that it hurt at all.

"Jesus Christ, where are the goddamned guns? Kill her! Kill the bitch, kill her, _killherohjesusshesoutshesoutshes-_-"

His hands ached, knuckles rigid and locked, his nails drawing oozing crescents from his palms. He'd attempted a few Hail Mary's, but all the screaming distracted him, and he kept forgetting the words. Some part of him perversely longed for those screams when they stopped, because they had cloaked the other, quieter, wetter sounds that made their way to him in the absence of all other noise. They went on and on, muffled and indistinct, and somehow more horrible for it.

When he tasted blood, Jack's first thought was that he'd bitten through his tongue in his efforts to keep silent, but then he drew a breath, and realized he wasn't tasting. He was _smelling._

Later, as his stomach ached, empty for some four or five days, Jack wondered if she really hadn't known he'd been there, or if she'd simply been too full to bother with him.


	4. Endures All Things

Not my characters, et cetera, et cetera.

ENDURES ALL THINGS

Struggling through the wet and the dark, Bill's arms were rapidly  
approaching that point where aching gave way to numbness. The strain  
in his legs seemed a thing almost apart from him, their labor  
something that no longer required conscious effort on his part.

He dare not let his efforts slack for even an instant, though. He'd  
sink if he did, crushed under exhaustion and terror.

_God, help me. I'm so afraid. So afraid._

Finally, amber light burst through the murk of his fear, and Bill  
lunged forward, forcing his dragging feet to run the last steps to  
his destination, here at what had to be the end of the bloody earth.

A booted foot worked as well as a fist for pounding a frantic  
summons on the doctor's door, but the sound and movement drew a moan  
from the ragdoll-limp body Bill carried, and he felt the arm slung  
bonelessly around his neck tighten, a hand clenching in the cotton  
of his shirt.

Burning to death with fever, Jack felt so hot against the front of  
Bill's body it seemed the icy rain should have raised steam where it  
struck him.

Jack made another small noise of pain, shivering, and Bill's taxed  
arms drew him nearer, his own aches forgotten so quickly they might  
never have been.


	5. Misery in Good Company

Yep, the characters still belong to Disney, and no, I'm not done playing with them.

MISERY IN GOOD COMPANY

He hurt. He hurt all over, inside and out. The aching started deep in the marrow of his bones and radiated out to his skin, his toes, his bloody _fingernails_. Someone had apparently nailed his eyes shut while he was sleeping, and whatever was making that horrendous chattering, clicking sound was driving them deeper into his head.

He might have complained if he wasn't afraid unclenching his jaw to do so would lead to him being violently sick all over himself.

Instead of words, a weak mewl he was fairly sure he hadn't made voluntarily escaped him, and though he thought for certain the sound would have been inaudible outside his own throbbing head, someone else heard, because the next thing he was aware of was gentle, blessedly cool hands on his face, and a familiar voice speaking in hushed tones very near his ear.

"Easy, Jack. Lie quiet for me now, lad."

"Bill..." he rasped out, and the effort set him gagging. Arms got him quickly upright to prevent him from choking himself, but his stomach was long empty, and the convulsive heaving accomplished nothing but making it feel as if his body was splitting apart inside.

"I'm right here, lad, I've got you. Bill's got you." He was eased back onto his pillow when it was over, and those hands laid something cool and wet across his closed eyes, even as they rolled back into his head. "Bill's going to make it better."

………………………….

"...influenza, by my reckoning, and a particularly ugly case of it."

The pain and heat were a weight that pressed him into the mattress, while the world spun madly around him.

"You're sure?" That was Bill, but even to Jack's struggling ears he sounded wrong...sounded frightened. "When the blood started, I thought only of yellow fever."

"No, no fear of that. His throat's worn raw from vomiting. Roof of the mouth, as well, from the look of...no bleeding coming from any deeper than that. None in the eyes, either, and his color's not..."

Deciding the vertigo would probably be worse with his eyes open, and not entirely sure he could manage such a task anyway, Jack left them closed.

"...help settle his stomach, and I'll add...heal the irritation in the throat...see if he's ready to be bled--"

Jack managed a protesting gasp, even as Bill voiced his own, and one hand flailed on the bed in what he could only hope was Bill's direction. It was caught and held tightly, and a work-weathered touch swept his forehead, smoothing away sweat and fear.

"Shhh, Jack, I won't let him. I won't let him. You rest yourself, now."

"Mr. Turner--"

"Over my dead body, mate. Is that understood?"

His fingers limp in Bill's, Jack exhaled a smile. _That's it, Bill. Give 'im hell_...

…………………………..

Every joint and muscle screamed in protest when he was lifted from the bed, but for his part Jack could only chime in with a whimper.

"I know it hurts, lad, I know." Bill's voice rumbled up through his chest, and Jack burrowed closer to the sound and vibration. "We're going to make it better right now."

The bath wasn't truly that cold, but he'd been host to a fire under his skin for the better part of three days, and at the first touch of the chilled water, Jack nearly screamed.

"There we are," Bill soothed as he lowered the younger man into the water. "There's my strong lad."

Jack twisted miserably, but gradually exhaustion won out over discomfort, and he let Bill guide his head down to rest on the edge of the tub. That cool, damp hand cupped and held his brow, a second coming up to knead gently at the base of his skull.

"Close your eyes, Jack," Bill murmured. "Just close your eyes and rest. We're going to soak this fever out of you, lad, and it doesn't take you bein' awake to get it done."

At some point the water temperature changed from agonizing to bearable, and Jack's breathing softened. It was approaching pleasant when he drifted into sleep.

………………………..

He woke without opening his eyes, the first bits of awareness coming to him in sensations instead of sights.

His sluggishly stirring limbs slid between soft, if threadbare, linens, and the heavier weight of a quilt over top of those. He nuzzled deeper into his pillow, and had a vague memory of being lifted just high enough from it so that it could be turned over, the cool side awaiting his aching head when it was lowered back down.


	6. Ebb

All characters are borrowed. Without permission.

EBB

Something had gone out of him when the grey man fell down, smelling of  
blood and that strange, noisy fire. It had flowed from his mind, his  
consciousness, and it left him bewildered and blinking, less than he'd  
been, but at the same time, more. The acrid scent of smoke that filled  
the cavern agitated him now. He had forgotten, long ago, that there  
was fear associated with that scent.

The grey man had forgotten it, too.

When the tide began to rise, he darted in and snatched up the apple  
where it had been dropped, before the water could carry it away. Tiny,  
sharp teeth pierced the green peel, and he nibbled ravenously at the  
fruit, bright eyes snapping up to watch with base curiosity as the  
grey man's body drifted away.


	7. For the Wicked

Characters belong to the Holy Rodent Empire.

FOR THE WICKED  
by virgo79

Hector Barbossa's hell is usually nothing more than black sand beneath a starless sky, on and on in all directions. There is light enough to reveal that there's nothing to see. No wind scours this desert. It doesn't blaze with the heat it should, nor does it freeze with the biting cold that ought to be the only alternative.

It's usually a place where all the nothing in the world is kept. He doesn't even have the crunch of his boots in the sand to listen to. His footfalls make no sound, and he leaves no prints behind him.

But sometimes, the heatless desert manages a mirage, just for him.

The gown puddles like spilled wine at the Swann girl's feet, and the rustle of that heavy silk sounds like the first wave of a downpour in the silence. Bootstrap's brat runs his roughened fingertips up her bared arms, and she shivers in delight. Her head tips back against Turner's shoulder as he dips low to lap at the down-soft skin of her throat, and their sighs cut through the stillness like the north wind screaming down on him.

When Turner's hands move on from her arms, Elizabeth opens her eyes to stare right into Barbossa's, and her parted lips twist into a cruel smile. And when Turner lays her down on the sand, he lifts his own face to Barbossa's, dark eyes holding blue mercilessly even as the boy lowers his head to press a kiss between her breasts.

"She tastes like apples, you know," Will informs him, and then the boy starts to laugh. Elizabeth joins him, and Barbossa realizes he's fallen to his knees, close enough to touch them.

"If there was anything there to touch, that is."

Jack Sparrow's voice brings Barbossa's head around, and when he looks back, the lovers are gone, not even an imprint in the sand where they'd been.

Jack smiles. "Don't worry, mate. They'll be back." He raises his hand to his mouth, and takes a bite out of the apple he's holding. "Mmm..." he sighs, crunching appreciatively. He licks the juice off his lips, and then his smile widens, getting sharp around the edges.

"None of us are goin' anywhere, Hector."


End file.
